Housing Strategy
Housing Strategies are documents which look to determine Local Authority priorities in relation to the provision of Housing in their area. While they are quite separate to Planning Policies — which mainly deal with land use, there is some considerable interrelationship between the documents.
In recent days the Greater Cambridge authorities (South Cambridgeshire District Council and Cambridge City Council) have recently published a draft Housing strategy for consultation purposes with the aim of adoption by July 2024. The document outlines a number of laudable objectives for the period of 2024–2029 including:
- Building the Right Homes in the right places that people need and can afford to live in
- High Quality, low carbon energy and water efficient homes
- Promoting Settled lives
- Building strong partnerships
However what the document doesn’t do is show that there is a clear understanding of housing needs in the Greater Cambridge area, the nature and type of stock, its size and condition and how more specialist needs are to be achieved. It doesn’t try to deal with challenging issues around Homelessness, specialist and supported housing and delegates student housing needs back to the planning system to be dealt with. It doesn’t ask the questions that should be asked. This is the wrong approach for the reasons set out below:
Greater Cambridge has an incredibly diverse housing market and a wide variety of ageing housing stock. A simple split between private/affordable and looking at affordability levels, waiting lists and incomes doesn’t allow a clear strategy to be developed either against a current context or against any significant growth objective. Phrases such as ‘for those on low incomes, the housing options are scarce’, or ‘both councils are keen to support other housing options where there is a clear evidence of need’ doesn’t show any great understanding of the diverse types or needs that current and future inhabitants may have. The Housing Strategy is the place where these issues should be explored and clearly identified and defined.
Cambridge has been identified as a place of nationally significant growth in order to support the Life Science / Technology sectors This could mean up to 150,000 new homes are developed in and around the city in the coming years possibly through an Enabling Body such as a Development Corporation. The strategy should accept and acknowledge this and should start to be explicit around the types, tenures and forms of housing that the city is likely to need to sustain itself and this growth be it more smaller social rent affordable homes, single family private homes, increased specialist care provision or student accommodation. It should rely on recent/live data and not data that due to global circumstances (eg Covid 19 Pandemic) is out of date by the time it is adopted.
The document isn’t specific around the condition of current housing stock, and in particular Council owned stock across the area instead citing national data. If there is a backlog of maintenance issues due to housing reaching the end of its life then it should be identified. Equally if there is a proportion of housing that fails to meet Decent Home Standards then that should also be identified along with the number of properties that fail to reach a minimum Energy Performance Certificate (EPC) standards and where work may now need to be undertaken to achieve climate objectives. This is before any need to identify those areas where there may be the need to adapt those homes and communities to better cater for an ageing population or specialist requirements.
To create diverse, mixed and balanced communities there needs to be an acceptance of challenges that exist in certain areas be this access to core services such as healthcare and support, access to healthy food and access to employment. It should recognise that in some areas access to community facilities, usable open spaces and sustainable transport is extremely poor and that as a result this should be a priority. It should look to encourage and support ways in which positive interventions, strong stewardship, planning and placemaking can support, sustain and foster stronger communities.
There is no reference to the infrastructure challenges that exist and how they may influence the wider aims. It is well documented that there are concerns around the sustainability of Greater Cambridges water supply and that this is currently preventing thousands of new private, affordable and specialist homes from being delivered around the Greater Cambridge Area. There is also an ongoing need to improve, protect and enhance that infrastructure through electrical network upgrades, electric car charging roll outs, upgrading of end of life services (Gas) and the implementation of new high speed broadband networks. The document should consider how and where the councils will proactively support and encourage such work where it is needed to help create, enhance and sustain existing communities in line with the Housing Strategy policies.
For a Housing Strategy to be comprehensive and effective it needs to make the links between different thematic areas across existing stock, supply, social, security and demographic areas and identify what might not be obvious. It should provide a comprehensive baseline that identifies the risks and challenges that exist. It should be based on current and emerging data that is gained from a variety of different sources from National Statistics to local housing maintenance records, council tax data, Social Services and Healthcare providers through to the two Universities and both local and international employers. From that baseline key priorities should be clearly identified, realistic and reportable.
Importantly the document should be robust enough to survive political and electoral cycles and should be something that where appropriate it actively encourages positive support from officers, elected members and communities.
A good Housing Strategy should seek to address the current and future needs of its residents and communities. What it shouldn’t do is seek to introduce ‘back door’ planning policies but should help guide and inform the wording of those of those policies so that there is transparency and legibility for all stakeholders in the planning process. It should inform land use and investment plans and it can help shape, guide, enhance, build and maintain strong communities
With this document Greater Cambridge has the opportunity to do so and to proactively shape its own future and it would be a great shame if it didn’t proactively use this opportunity to meet its current and emerging housing needs.
